Obama heads to ‘epicenter’ of VA scandal

President Obama on Friday will visit the Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix that was at the heart of last year’s scandal over mismanaged care at the agency.

The president will use the visit — where he will meet with VA employees, veterans groups and elected officials — to roll out the details of a new advisory board designed to help the still-recovering department better address veterans’ needs

{mosads}Obama, along with VA Secretary Robert McDonald, will also tout the steps that have been taken since last summer’s scandal over long patient wait times, the White House said. 

“This is part of the president’s ongoing efforts to improve care for veterans. Improving timely access to care for our veterans is an issue that the administration has been working on diligently,” deputy press secretary Eric Schultz told reporters on Thursday.

“So, even though it might not be generating front-page news every day, this is something that the president has been focused on.”

The visit is a marked turnaround from two months ago, when Obama’s presidential motorcade drove by — but did not stop — at the VA hospital while he was in Arizona to speak on housing reform.

Veterans groups and GOP lawmakers at the time urged Obama to visit the hospital, which was located just a mile from the high school where his event was scheduled.

The White House would not comment on the timing of Friday’s high-profile visit or Obama’s decision to skip the facility in January, saying the president would make his reasons for visiting clear.

Reports that veterans at the Phoenix facility waited an average of 115 days for medical care prompted a national outcry and investigations into practices at veterans medical facilities.

Then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki was forced to resign over the scandal, and Congress passed a $16.3 billion reform bill to revamp the beleaguered agency.

Even though the VA says it has taken steps to tackle the problems that plagued the Phoenix site — including authorizing 30,000 patients to seek private medical care, hiring hundreds more personnel and cutting down on wait times — some are not yet ready to forgive the department, or Obama, for last year’s woes.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam veteran who criticized Obama for not visiting the Phoenix VA in January, offered faint praise when Friday’s visit was announced.

“I am pleased that President Obama has finally decided to visit veterans at the Phoenix VA this week, nearly one year after reports first surfaced about Arizona veterans dying due to VA mismanagement and two months after the president’s motorcade drove directly past the Phoenix VA without stopping,” said McCain said in a statement.

The senator will accompany Obama on his tour of the facility.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) said the president’s “visit to the epicenter of the VA scandal comes at an important time.”

Miller chastised the VA for not doing enough to dismiss officials connected to the scandal. He noted that Sharon Helman, head of the Phoenix site at the time, wasn’t fired for keeping secret patient rolls but for accepting gifts from a healthcare organization.

“I think President Obama made the right decision in putting Bob McDonald at the helm of the department. But if Sec. McDonald is to succeed in correcting VA’s course, he’s going to need the president’s help,” he said. Miller offered to amend existing laws to improve accountability at the agency.

Veterans groups also said more needed to be done.

“We hope that this is a sign that the president will begin to take VA reform seriously — something he has thus far only paid lip service to,” Dan Caldwell, legislative and political director for of Concerned Veterans for America, said in a statement.

“While it’s encouraging that he is finally taking the time to visit the facility, we can only hope that the he gets an unvarnished view of the myriad of problems at the Phoenix VA hospital, and not a whitewashed tour choreographed by hospital administrators there — many of whom remain under investigation,” he said.